Ugh I made the mistake of looking up some tweets with that hash tag and wow. I really don’t understand why some people keep saying the ruling has made it possible for businesses to ban all contraceptives.
It’s been my experience that the political lefts chief method of debate is pretending hyperbole is reality. Get the notion out there fast and heavy and hopefully enough people believe it and vote accordingly.
That is a great way of putting: Liberals argue as if hyperbole is reality. They are very good at knocking down strawmen. “People who disagree with consequence free sex, and who refuse to pay for someone else’s access to birth control hate women. You disagree with consequence free sex and think an employer shouldn’t have to provide birth control. Why do you hate women? The people with whom you associate are pushing back against paying for contraception. Why do you support the war on women?
What exactly do you mean by “ban all contraceptives“? Hobby Lobby asked to have the right to insure their employees without covering four specific methods of birth control that their “sincerely held religious beliefs” consider abortificants.
Is that what you mean? That the ruling was so specific that only birth control that people “sincerely believe” are abortificants are allowed to be taken out of employee health insurance policies?
Did you read the decision?
No. Because no one is prevented from getting anything they want. There’s a difference between me not paying for your premium gas but you being able to buy it yourself, but will pay for regular and mid grade. And me preventing you from getting premium gas.
If your employer pays you minimum wage and doesn’t cover birth control, they are preventing you from getting birth control. If that coverage is guaranteed to every other person with benefits sponsored by their employer but not to you because of a “religious exemption”- you are prevented from getting what you want.
This ruling allowed Hobby Lobby to choose to exempt itself from paying for a legal minimum level of coverage because they “sincerely believe” that IUDs and Plan B cause abortions. The science doesn’t agree with them, but they believe it nonetheless.
This ruling is about more than Hobby Lobby, there are co-petitioners in that ruling that want to recuse themselves from paying for any kind of birth control because of their Catholic faith.
You can’t argue the decision in a vacuum. There are dangerous precedents that were set in the decision.
But 1) the science does agree. The methods of birth control they object to can and often do lead to terminating a fertilized ovum, which is a living human being according to science. None of the non covered options are medical necessities.
Personally, I don’t think employers should be required to provide anythjng more than money for work. All else is beyond the call.
“If your employer pays you minimum wage and doesn’t cover birth control, they are preventing you from getting birth control. ”
That’s rediculous. Level of pay is irrelvenat, for starters. Whatever a person’s income, if birth control is important enough to them, they will budget for it. It’s their responsibility, no one else’s.
The science does not agree, but that isn’t even relevant. The ruling allows employers to seek out benefit plans that do not offer services which they object to on religious grounds. That certainly and surely includes employers who think ALL birth control is contrary to their religious beliefs, and likely includes employers who might wish not to cover psychotherapy and related drugs (scientologists), blood transfusions and blood products (Jehovah’s Witnesses), and any other “sincerely held” religious medical advice.
To argue that Hobby Lobby is a single issue judgement applicable to a very specific circumstance is near-sighted and wrong.
First, the science does actually say that at conception a new human being begins to exist. That is wholly relevant because it is the termination of that new human being that many people find morally and religiously repugnant and want no part of it.
But I find nothing wrong with any employer refusing anything more than a salary. No one owes you health insurance. at what point can you not require “essentials” be provided by employers?
Food, shelter, clothing, and transportation are all essential things for people even before health related insurances. What is stopping the government from requiring employers to provide those? A precedent has been set.
I’m going to argue that if you live a reasonable distance from work and your employer isn’t paying you enough to afford shelter, food, and necessities and transportation- then yes, your employer is denying you both those things.
A full day’s work should reasonably afford you a standard of living outside of poverty. Period.
George, that doesn’t take into account the kind of work you’re doing. There’s a reason flipping burgers, delivering mail, practicing law, and a biological chemist aren’t all making the same wages.
First, I note that you don’t define what you consider a minimal level of food, clothing, shelter, etc. Nor do you specify family size.
Second, What wage level would you consider appropriate to provide your undefined standard of living.
Third, If a person accepts a job at an agreed upon wage, where does anyone have the standing to determine that that freely chosen circumstance is somehow wrong.
Just have to add that birth control is absolutely free. Don’t engage in the behavior that is designed to result in pregnancy. It doesn’t cost a thing to abstain from sexual intercourse.
Also, I totally agree with John as regards an employer offering salary alone. Anything to which both employer and employee can agree for purposes of trading labor for compensation is just. No one forces an employee to take any given job (aside from his own circumstances and needs). No one should be able to force an employer to provide whatever compensation he does not find commensurate with the job offered (aside from his own circumstances and needs).
Here’s another righteous point: if one doesn’t receive enough compensation to allow the purchase of something, one doesn’t get to have it until one saves the money or finds another way to acquire the money needed.
I think the notion is absurd, that an employer denies you access to something unless they specifically provide you that something. The right to own a firearm is actually explicit in the Constitution, and yet an employer isn’t denying one’s second amendment right unless the paycheck comes with a gun and ammo.
But on another point, I think I can agree.
George writes, “A full day’s work should reasonably afford you a standard of living outside of poverty. Period.”
I agree that it SHOULD, if you’re a reasonably capable adult not hindered by severe physical or mental handicaps.
But if it doesn’t, what’s the solution? I believe it’s that the adult should find a better paying job, improving his skills and work habits so that he’s more productive, more competitive in the labor market, and therefore more attractive to prospective employers. If he does that, he will have improved his own lot in life by earning it, and we will have the salutary side effects of a productive economy and a free society.
In a free society, every individual is free to make his own decisions, INCLUDING BUSINESS OWNERS. Business owners are free to make their own decisions regarding what they produce, the prices they charge for them, and the wages they offer to the additional labor they seek to employ. Just as, in a free society, prospective employees aren’t treated as helpless wards of the state’s charity, business owners aren’t treated as extensions of the state’s power.
The state’s proper duty is enforcing private contracts, not dictating the terms of those contracts — making sure that both parties fulfill that to which they agree, not telling either party what they must agree to.
After all, it’s a long-standing observation of jurisprudence that a contract signed under duress is unenforceable.
Bubba, It seems that the key word in the sentence is “should”. I’d suggest that a single person “should” be able to live above the poverty line working full time at a relatively low hourly wage (perhaps even minimum wage). To achieve this might require some compromises though. For example, sharing an apartment or a smaller apartment. Not being able to afford the newest hottest stuff (phone, TV, game system, whatever). But I agree that it “should” be possible. But, if it’s not possible then what? Seems to me that the answer is one of the following; improve your skills, work more hours, find a better paying job, take a second or third job (FYI, that’s a choice I’ve had to make. I’m currently employed by three organizations and my wife is probably going to do the part time thing as well. Not, because our full time jobs don’t pay enough, but because we’ve decided to make the sacrifice to allow our kids to be able to attend the colleges of their choosing.). In other words put forth the effort needed to achieve your desired standard of living. This notion of being able to say “pay me more money” and to expect it to magically appear just seems out of touch with reality.
Ultimately, I believe that the problem lies less with wages and more with peoples expectations.
Instead of complaining that someone is only making min wage, that person should be asking why that person is only qualified to work a job that only pays min wage.
As with many things, the problem is with the premise. The premise is that there is a vast number of people who are working at minimum wage jobs and who stay at minimum wage for extended periods of time. Of course, people start at minimum wage, but it’s as if these folks never get raises or never use the minimum wage position as s step to something else. It also ignores the fact that a significant percentage of minimum wage earners are younger people working first jobs or part time while attending school. It’s also interesting that no one considers the possibility that the P-BO “recovery” with it’s lack of new jobs, historically low workforce participation rates, and the pressures on employers due to P-BO care, could possibly have any bearing on the numbers of people in minimum wage type jobs.
I’ve also yet to hear anyone on the left define what precisely what is considered a “living wage”. Or, to put it another way, what minimal standard of living are they comfortable with for other people.
If one takes the P-BO mandated $10.10/ hr that works out to $19,392.00/year before taxes. Does anyone think that this is really a living wage?
Religious, political, and social commentary through the filter of a conservative Christian worldview. I focus on addressing why critic's arguments against my views fail rather than the traditional positive case-making for the Christian worldview.
Sifting Reality 
Truth is not required on the left. Indeed, neither is knowledge.
Ugh I made the mistake of looking up some tweets with that hash tag and wow. I really don’t understand why some people keep saying the ruling has made it possible for businesses to ban all contraceptives.
It’s been my experience that the political lefts chief method of debate is pretending hyperbole is reality. Get the notion out there fast and heavy and hopefully enough people believe it and vote accordingly.
That is a great way of putting: Liberals argue as if hyperbole is reality. They are very good at knocking down strawmen. “People who disagree with consequence free sex, and who refuse to pay for someone else’s access to birth control hate women. You disagree with consequence free sex and think an employer shouldn’t have to provide birth control. Why do you hate women? The people with whom you associate are pushing back against paying for contraception. Why do you support the war on women?
What exactly do you mean by “ban all contraceptives“? Hobby Lobby asked to have the right to insure their employees without covering four specific methods of birth control that their “sincerely held religious beliefs” consider abortificants.
Is that what you mean? That the ruling was so specific that only birth control that people “sincerely believe” are abortificants are allowed to be taken out of employee health insurance policies?
Did you read the decision?
George, that’s what the political left is saying, that the ruling means employers can prevent women from getting health care.
This ruling does mean that employers can prevent some women from getting some healthcare. Can we at least agree to that?
No. Because no one is prevented from getting anything they want. There’s a difference between me not paying for your premium gas but you being able to buy it yourself, but will pay for regular and mid grade. And me preventing you from getting premium gas.
Abortion is not health care. Providing medication that terminates a fertilized ovum, ie, a human life, is not health care.
If your employer pays you minimum wage and doesn’t cover birth control, they are preventing you from getting birth control. If that coverage is guaranteed to every other person with benefits sponsored by their employer but not to you because of a “religious exemption”- you are prevented from getting what you want.
This ruling allowed Hobby Lobby to choose to exempt itself from paying for a legal minimum level of coverage because they “sincerely believe” that IUDs and Plan B cause abortions. The science doesn’t agree with them, but they believe it nonetheless.
This ruling is about more than Hobby Lobby, there are co-petitioners in that ruling that want to recuse themselves from paying for any kind of birth control because of their Catholic faith.
You can’t argue the decision in a vacuum. There are dangerous precedents that were set in the decision.
But 1) the science does agree. The methods of birth control they object to can and often do lead to terminating a fertilized ovum, which is a living human being according to science. None of the non covered options are medical necessities.
Personally, I don’t think employers should be required to provide anythjng more than money for work. All else is beyond the call.
“If your employer pays you minimum wage and doesn’t cover birth control, they are preventing you from getting birth control. ”
That’s rediculous. Level of pay is irrelvenat, for starters. Whatever a person’s income, if birth control is important enough to them, they will budget for it. It’s their responsibility, no one else’s.
Wish we had Hobby Lobby in Canada.
The science does not agree, but that isn’t even relevant. The ruling allows employers to seek out benefit plans that do not offer services which they object to on religious grounds. That certainly and surely includes employers who think ALL birth control is contrary to their religious beliefs, and likely includes employers who might wish not to cover psychotherapy and related drugs (scientologists), blood transfusions and blood products (Jehovah’s Witnesses), and any other “sincerely held” religious medical advice.
To argue that Hobby Lobby is a single issue judgement applicable to a very specific circumstance is near-sighted and wrong.
First, the science does actually say that at conception a new human being begins to exist. That is wholly relevant because it is the termination of that new human being that many people find morally and religiously repugnant and want no part of it.
But I find nothing wrong with any employer refusing anything more than a salary. No one owes you health insurance. at what point can you not require “essentials” be provided by employers?
Food, shelter, clothing, and transportation are all essential things for people even before health related insurances. What is stopping the government from requiring employers to provide those? A precedent has been set.
Just occurred to me. If your employer doesn’t provide a ride to work or lunch, are they denying you a ride or food? What if you only make min wage?
I’m going to argue that if you live a reasonable distance from work and your employer isn’t paying you enough to afford shelter, food, and necessities and transportation- then yes, your employer is denying you both those things.
A full day’s work should reasonably afford you a standard of living outside of poverty. Period.
George, that doesn’t take into account the kind of work you’re doing. There’s a reason flipping burgers, delivering mail, practicing law, and a biological chemist aren’t all making the same wages.
First, I note that you don’t define what you consider a minimal level of food, clothing, shelter, etc. Nor do you specify family size.
Second, What wage level would you consider appropriate to provide your undefined standard of living.
Third, If a person accepts a job at an agreed upon wage, where does anyone have the standing to determine that that freely chosen circumstance is somehow wrong.
Speaking as an attorney, I have to say that Justice Scalia is the smartest man in America.
Just have to add that birth control is absolutely free. Don’t engage in the behavior that is designed to result in pregnancy. It doesn’t cost a thing to abstain from sexual intercourse.
Also, I totally agree with John as regards an employer offering salary alone. Anything to which both employer and employee can agree for purposes of trading labor for compensation is just. No one forces an employee to take any given job (aside from his own circumstances and needs). No one should be able to force an employer to provide whatever compensation he does not find commensurate with the job offered (aside from his own circumstances and needs).
Here’s another righteous point: if one doesn’t receive enough compensation to allow the purchase of something, one doesn’t get to have it until one saves the money or finds another way to acquire the money needed.
I think the notion is absurd, that an employer denies you access to something unless they specifically provide you that something. The right to own a firearm is actually explicit in the Constitution, and yet an employer isn’t denying one’s second amendment right unless the paycheck comes with a gun and ammo.
But on another point, I think I can agree.
George writes, “A full day’s work should reasonably afford you a standard of living outside of poverty. Period.”
I agree that it SHOULD, if you’re a reasonably capable adult not hindered by severe physical or mental handicaps.
But if it doesn’t, what’s the solution? I believe it’s that the adult should find a better paying job, improving his skills and work habits so that he’s more productive, more competitive in the labor market, and therefore more attractive to prospective employers. If he does that, he will have improved his own lot in life by earning it, and we will have the salutary side effects of a productive economy and a free society.
In a free society, every individual is free to make his own decisions, INCLUDING BUSINESS OWNERS. Business owners are free to make their own decisions regarding what they produce, the prices they charge for them, and the wages they offer to the additional labor they seek to employ. Just as, in a free society, prospective employees aren’t treated as helpless wards of the state’s charity, business owners aren’t treated as extensions of the state’s power.
The state’s proper duty is enforcing private contracts, not dictating the terms of those contracts — making sure that both parties fulfill that to which they agree, not telling either party what they must agree to.
After all, it’s a long-standing observation of jurisprudence that a contract signed under duress is unenforceable.
Bubba, It seems that the key word in the sentence is “should”. I’d suggest that a single person “should” be able to live above the poverty line working full time at a relatively low hourly wage (perhaps even minimum wage). To achieve this might require some compromises though. For example, sharing an apartment or a smaller apartment. Not being able to afford the newest hottest stuff (phone, TV, game system, whatever). But I agree that it “should” be possible. But, if it’s not possible then what? Seems to me that the answer is one of the following; improve your skills, work more hours, find a better paying job, take a second or third job (FYI, that’s a choice I’ve had to make. I’m currently employed by three organizations and my wife is probably going to do the part time thing as well. Not, because our full time jobs don’t pay enough, but because we’ve decided to make the sacrifice to allow our kids to be able to attend the colleges of their choosing.). In other words put forth the effort needed to achieve your desired standard of living. This notion of being able to say “pay me more money” and to expect it to magically appear just seems out of touch with reality.
Ultimately, I believe that the problem lies less with wages and more with peoples expectations.
Instead of complaining that someone is only making min wage, that person should be asking why that person is only qualified to work a job that only pays min wage.
As with many things, the problem is with the premise. The premise is that there is a vast number of people who are working at minimum wage jobs and who stay at minimum wage for extended periods of time. Of course, people start at minimum wage, but it’s as if these folks never get raises or never use the minimum wage position as s step to something else. It also ignores the fact that a significant percentage of minimum wage earners are younger people working first jobs or part time while attending school. It’s also interesting that no one considers the possibility that the P-BO “recovery” with it’s lack of new jobs, historically low workforce participation rates, and the pressures on employers due to P-BO care, could possibly have any bearing on the numbers of people in minimum wage type jobs.
I’ve also yet to hear anyone on the left define what precisely what is considered a “living wage”. Or, to put it another way, what minimal standard of living are they comfortable with for other people.
If one takes the P-BO mandated $10.10/ hr that works out to $19,392.00/year before taxes. Does anyone think that this is really a living wage?